Almost Home
by Astralis
Summary: When Galen was a child, his little sister was given a doll's house for her birthday. TyrolCally, spoilers through LDYB2.


**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own them, I don't claim to own them, and I never will own them

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When Galen was a child, his little sister was given a doll's house for her birthday. It was a model of the traditional small-town Geminese home, and Anna loved it. She spent many blissful hours arranging and rearranging the furniture and organising the complicated lives of the doll family. She'd make Galen play too, bullying him into it with a combination of whining, blackmail, and big brown eyes. He always had to be the father, who went off to the temple each day at Anna's bidding, or the sons, who were usually very naughty, teasing their sisters, breaking things or pulling up plants from the garden.

Galen always thought that one day, Anna would be a very good (if very bossy) mother. Very much in the mold of their own mother, of course: the sort of mother who fussed about your room being tidy and not wearing dirty shoes in the house, but made thick hot chocolate on cold winter days and let you sleep in her bed when you were sick. The sort of mother who was devoted to the gods and her family in equal measure.

When she got older, and discovered boys, Anna put the doll's house away. It sat on a shelf in her room gathering dust, and sometimes when Galen was in there for one reason or another it'd catch his eye and he'd remember.

When Anna got married she took the doll's house with her. For her children, she said, beaming, once again the little girl who'd played with the mother doll.

Galen had seen her on his last leave. She was happy and content, and Galen held his beautiful little niece and wished for something like her, one day. He didn't tell Anna about Sharon.

The doll's house was sitting on a shelf in the main room. When he gave the baby back to Anna, Galen picked up some of the furniture and turned it in his hands. It was smaller than he expected, and more battered. It made sense, really: it had a been a long time, and he and Anna had been rough with that furniture.

"Do you remember?" Anna asked.

"Yeah." Galen picked up the mother doll, the father doll, and looked at them lying in his hands. He nodded at Anna's baby. "She'll play with these some day."

Anna smiled, and tickled her daughter under the chin.

When Galen walked out the door later that afternoon that was what he remembered: Anna smiled and the baby giggling and the doll's house on the shelf behind them.

Six months later, the Cylons came.

* * *

Standing in the doorway of his tent, Galen was reminded - suddenly, painfully - of little Anna playing with that doll's house, fiddling with the furniture, making it just right, in those long ago days on far off Geminon, where life didn't hurt and no one doubted there would be a tomorrow.

It was their first day on New Caprica, and Cally looked like she was playing house. She'd been shifting things round for the last three hours and fussing so much that Galen had said he was going for a walk. He'd walked right round the settlement, breathing in the fresh air, the sounds of thousands of people living their lives in the place where his child - maybe even children - would be born and raised, and then, after getting slightly lost amid the rows of same coloured tents, gone home to find Cally doing precisely what she'd been doing when he left.

It wasn't as if they had a lot, even between two of them. Anna's doll house had had more things in it. There was a bed that looked like it was going to be the most uncomfortable one Galen had ever slept in, and there were a few rough shelves and a chair. It was their few personal effects Cally was organising - clothes, tools, the books she'd inherited after Socinus died, a few trinkets, and photos of home. Photos of family.

Galen watched his wife as she looked down at the top shelf. Her back was straight, her body tense and rigid and hard as steel. He went over to stand behind her, feeling the warmth of her body. "You okay, Cally?"

She shrugged and traced her fingers over Galen's statues of Artemis and Aphrodite.

Galen put a hand on her shoulder, and looked at the doll Cally's mother had given her when she shipped out for basic. As long as he'd known her, Cally had toyed with it in the night when she was lonely. It had dark hair and big dark eyes, like Cally, and wore traditional Virgonese dress. Cally's mother had told her, "So you don't forget where you came from when you're out there among the stars." When she told him that story, Galen had wondered whether it was meant to be a comfort or a guilt-trip, and he still wasn't sure what Cally got from the doll.

Next to the doll lay the old, worn Book of Prayers his godfather had given him when he was dedicated. Galen Tyrol, son of a priest and an Oracle, dedicated to Hermes, messenger of the gods, and, ironically, god of those who travel. He'd never quite been what his parents had dreamed for him. The Colonial Fleet had never been in their plans.

He looked at the photos, the faces of people he'd known and would never see again, and the faces of people he'd never met. His parents. Anna and her daughter. Cally's parents, grandparents, her older brothers and her younger sister. Each and every one of them was more than likely dead now. And if they weren't, if they'd somehow survived the initial attacks and everything that had happened afterwards, they were hundreds of thousands of miles and a lifetime away.

Galen bit his lip.

He closed his eyes for a second and took a few deep breaths, anchoring himself to the here and now, to New Caprica, then put his arms around Cally, resting one hand against her stomach. This was his family now: Cally, their baby. His son would never know his grandparents, his aunts and uncles, his cousins. But at least he'd grow up safe, with blue sky overhead and grass beneath his feet, breathing fresh air and eating real food.

At least he'd grow up.

When he couldn't bear to look at his memories anymore, Galen gently tugged Cally back onto the bed. It creaked sharply and dipped under their weight, then settled. Cally arranged herself with her head on his shoulder and lay there tracing patterns on his chest with one hand. His eyes followed the dull gleam of the ring on her finger as it moved across his chest, the one he'd made from a scrap of metal salvaged from a decommissioned Viper on the hangar deck late one night.

He was going to miss his Vipers, but it had gotten so he could hardly breathe on _Galactica_. Being at the Groundbreaking, looking out at the city as he'd walked around it before - this was where he was meant to be. He couldn't doubt that. He'd been drowning on _Galactica_ and the only face he'd been able to see was Cally's. Cally had believed he was human when he didn't, had forgiven him when he couldn't forgive himself, had trusted him when he didn't deserve it.

He had a second chance.

Galen kissed Cally's head, and held her a little tighter, and thought about the baby again. His son would be happy; Galen would make sure of that. They'd all be happy.

He thought, maybe one day there'd be a sister for this baby. We'll call her Anna, Galen thought, and I'll make her a doll's house.

Six months later, the Cylons came.

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**THE END**


End file.
